1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates, in general, to a document sheet issuing system in which a document sheet, such as, e.g., guarantee card, user registration card, etc., is issued during manufacturing of a product based on the ordering data, e.g., product name, model number, seller name (orderer), specification (accessories), number of products ordered, and then is delivered to the seller, e.g., retailer, wholesaler, distributor, along with the manufactured product. In particular, the invention relates to the system in which document sheets respectively corresponding to the products to be manufactured are prepared based on the ordering data during the manufacturing of the products and the document sheets are attached to corresponding products respectively before shipping. The guarantee card and the user registration card are inevitably attached to the product when the product is delivered.
2. Description of Related Art
In a conventional manufacturing system for consumer products, e.g., household appliances, personal computers and so on, a manufacturer firstly forecasts a demand of such products to estimate an amount of products to be manufactured, produces such products based on the estimation and then the produced products are temporarily stocked in a warehouse. Upon a reception of supply ordering from a retailer through communication tools such as Internet, the products stocked in the warehouse are finally delivered to the retailer.
In the above-described system, the manufacturer prepares documents, e.g., guarantee card, user registration card, manuals or the like, required to the product beforehand and such documents are attached to the product at the final stage of manufacturing the product. Then, the documents are supplied to the retailer together with the product upon the reception of the supply ordering. Contents or forms of documents supplied to different retailers are the same although each retailer to which products are supplied is different to one another because the documents are prepared before the reception of the supply ordering from the retailer. Therefore, the retailer may have a troublesome operation when the retailer sells the product to a customer.
In more detail, when a product is sold at a retail store, a store clerk picks out a guarantee card and a user registration card from a carton box in which the product is packed so that the name of the retail store is stamped or written on the guarantee card and the date of purchasing the product is also stamped or written on the card. Therefore, operations that the guarantee card is picked out and the name of the retail store and the date of purchasing the product are stamped or written on the guarantee card are necessitated by the store clerk.
To simplify the operations above, the store clerk does not conduct such operations when selling the product and instead, the customer is requested that a receipt issued when purchasing the product and the guarantee card on which no store name is stamped is kept.
When the product is out of order, the user (customer) shows the receipt and the guarantee card at the store from which the product was bought to request a repair of the product. Necessary information is then stamped or written on the guarantee card by the store clerk.
Furthermore, in the above-described system, manufacturers have a risk that the temporarily stocked products in the warehouse become a dead inventory if the sales amount of the product is not increased as opposed to its forecast. In order to reduce such risk, it is considered to change from a manufacture based on the forecast to a manufacture upon a supply ordering.
In the manufacture based on a supply ordering, it is inevitable to take time from the reception of the supply ordering to the delivery of a product although it is expected to resolve the above-described risk.
To compensate for the above drawback, new services by manufacturers have been expected by retailers and/or customers.